Review: Quitters (2016)

Posted on July 22, 2016 by sheila

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I didn’t really care for this one. I attempted to express why in my review at Rogerebert.com.

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Snapshots

Posted on July 18, 2016 by sheila

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, which used to be a regular feature.

— I went to the beach on Saturday to escape the mugginess, the stickiness, and because I am bogged down with two deadlines, huge ones, and my apartment felt like a prison. I hate the summer except for the prospect of ocean-swimming, and I haven’t swum in the ocean once this summer. I tried to go to my normal beach but the street-parking was impossible. There was no way I would ever find a spot. I drove on along the coast until I found a parking spot, and then just went onto whatever beach it was at the end of the road. Love the Shore like that. I brought some work to do, because I like it when the beach is my office. It was a blaring summer day, and I was covered in SPF 50 because if I get yet another freckle I will jump off the Triboro Bridge. I swam in the ocean and wept salty tears of gratitude for how awesome it felt. Not really. But you know. An hour after I got there, I felt …. something approaching. I turned around.

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Huh. So … clearly rain is coming. I don’t care about that, it also looked like it would pass pretty quickly. So I turned back around. Then things started getting more dramatic as the cloud moved directly overhead. The light out at sea got cold and almost … white. It looked very very still out there. Eerie, because it was the last light before it got snuffed out. Because then this started happening.

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The cloud rumbled with thunder. It was beautiful and I took 972 pictures of the cloud’s progression. Behind me now, there was a clear black line where the cloud ended, and the sky underneath that black line glowed bright white-orange-y, which looked distinctly tornado-ish. For the first time I thought, “Yeah. This is a bit more than your everyday summer shower.” Finally, the hot lifeguards started bellowing through megaphones and over the loud-speakers that it was time to evacuate the beach. What was happening was so magnificent I almost disobeyed. I love dangerous weather. I drove to the beach on Block Island in the middle of a nor’easter – a storm so strong that the shutters were ripped off of my house by the wind – so I could watch the waves roll in. I have never seen such a chaotic ocean in my life, the waves heaving about like monsters. It was stupid of me to be there. When I got back into my car, my hair was crusted with sand and sea-foam, because all of that shit was up in the air as opposed to down on the land or in the water. So. Sunday. I saw the black line of cloud with the clear sky beneath and felt: Danger. Reluctantly, I gathered up my stuff to head back to my car. As I walked by the little inland body of water right next to the beach, this is what I saw.

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And although my camera never captured it, huge white forks of lightning were shooting out of that black cloud and coming directly down onto the earth. It was GORGEOUS. It wasn’t even raining yet, although that would come, just as I reached my car. It rained so torrentially that I hung out in my car for a while waiting for it to pass. In about 40 minutes, the sun came out again. I drove home.

Yesterday morning I woke up and saw some headlines on my FB page from the town I had been in the day before. Two women had been struck by lightning as they walked back to their cars. At the same moment (2:35) that I was walking back to my car. One was struck by lightning IN her car. They were half a football field away from me, IF that. They were both rushed to the hospital (I do remember sirens), and it appears they’re both going to be okay, thankfully.

Sometimes a sky really is as dangerous as it looks.

— I have spent the last two weeks immersed in Leonardo DiCaprio and Dean Stockwell for these two upcoming essays, both of which I pitched to different outlets. Sometimes you pitch stuff and you don’t hear back, or you hear, “Thanks but no thanks.” I’ve got skin as tough as a rhino: try being an actress for 15, 20 years. NOTHING gets to you after that. But sometimes – on the same day – two separate editors say, “Yes! Would love for you to write that piece!” Then begins the hard work and of course I overdo the hard work, and practically pull out the Dead Sea Scrolls to find out if there might be a relevant quote in there I could use. Nevertheless, it’s been super-fun and I feel so strongly about both of those guys that it was a pleasure to write about them.

— Vacation next week. Going off the grid. Buh-bye world.

— Had a wonderful time last Thursday night at a screening for the Polish film Into the Spiral at the Tribeca Film Center (trailer below). Directed by Konrad Aksinowicz, and starring Kasia Warnke, Piotr Stramowski and Tamir Halperin, it tells the story of a couple on the rocks taking a road trip to an isolated country house, and they pick up a hippie-ish-guru Jewish man named Tamir. Told in a non-linear way, looping back on itself like a spiral, the film runs only 70 minutes and uses each second well. It feels like a much longer movie, considering how much happens: but overall it is spare, taut, gripping, and gorgeous. Shot on 35 mm by cinematographer Wojtek Zielinski, Into the Spiral is a strange and beautiful psychological thriller, and the acting is superb. The characters unfold by stealth: the film withholds information, then loops back so you can see more, more context provided, before looping back forward in time to push the story forward. It hasn’t been released here in the States yet, and if I’m not mistaken the screening at the Tribeca Film Center was the first time it screened in the US. Kasia and Piotr, the two stars – who fell in love during the film shoot and are getting married in two weeks’ time – were in attendance. It was their first time in New York City (and maybe America too? I can’t remember.) I was there to moderate the audience QA afterwards, which was a ton of fun. The actors are both super-smart, kind, excited, and forthcoming about the film, their process, the talented director (who had directed a feature before, but it was more “for hire”, and Into the Spiral represents his own vision). They both looked stunning – Piotr in a tuxedo, with his mohawk growing out (he’s starring in a hugely popular Polish franchise right now, where he appears in full-on mohawk. It’s going to be a trilogy, apparently. Piotr gave me a copy of the first installment, called Pit Bull and I look forward to watching it!) Stars in Poland (and you can see why: both are magnificent actors) Kasia and Piotr were thrilled to show their film here, maybe a bit nervous beforehand, but beautifully relaxed onstage answering questions, so happy to share their work. Afterwards there was a reception down in DeNiro’s Tribeca Grill, and I met a super cool filmmaker, of Polish descent (as most people present were), who told me about his projects (they sound AMAZING), and I told him the films I’ve seen that I flipped over this year (The Fits, Krisha), he typed the titles into his phone, we discussed The Lobster, we discussed film financing, distribution issues, documentary series. He mentioned a short film he had done, where he tricked out his apartment “to look like a Polish apartment.” “What does that mean?” He gave me a look and I said, “I’m Irish. I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He said, “Well, you know, pictures of Pope John Paul II everywhere.” “Of course. Well, Irish houses all have that too so I get what you’re saying.” I’ve done a couple of QAs for this organization, Polish Filmmakers NYC basically because I was on an Ida panel up at Columbia last year. I love this organization, and I love the films I’ve been lucky enough to see because of my participation. Keep your eyes peeled for Into the Spiral.

— Thanks to Jessie, I have discovered the 2010 TV series Terriers. This all came about because I just saw Michael Raymond-James as Brick in the production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in the Berkshires, and was so impressed by him. I have never seen True Blood, even though Sam Trammell is a part of my brother/cousins circle of friends in Los Angeles. (Sam’s partner, Missy Yager, brilliant actress, was the first to play “Neve” in the very first reading of one of the scenes in my script – please excuse how crazy I sound there – or, don’t excuse it. I was extremely sick at the time and about to descend into such craziness that in looking back I should have been hospitalized in July of that year. I’m lucky I’m still topside after July 2009. So, you know. There it is. Missy also directed the LA workshop of my script in 2011– and was such an enormous help in script analysis that I can’t thank her enough. Initially we had talked about Missy and Sam playing the lead roles, they were both perfect for them, but then Missy got pregnant so the timing was off, and when she directed the workshop, she was extremely pregnant – like Third Trimester pregnant. She had her flip-flopped feet up over the seat in front of her in the little theatre we rehearsed in, and someone remarked that they looked like blown-up surgical gloves. Or maybe she said it. Tears of laughter all around.) ANYWAY. Jessie mentioned Terriers and it’s streaming on Netflix. It’s the Donal Logue-Michael Raymond-James Show, and from the pilot I was hooked. It only ran for one season, but it’s an extremely rich and eccentric season. Noel Murray (whose Terriers re-caps on AV Club I devoured after I saw the whole thing) said that there had been a proposed Rockford Files re-boot and then it fell through, and he was kind of bummed, but then he realized that the next best thing, as well as a similar thing, was to watch Terriers. I loved Rockford Files, appointment television for my parents, and I totally see what Murray was saying in that comparison. A scrappy detective, no resources, a lone wolf, having to fly by the seat of his pants. Terriers was a terrific series and I highly recommend it if you missed it the first time around.

— My illness acts up in the summer. And in the late fall. And in the early spring. So basically I’m screwed all year round. Doing my best, though. It’s all you can do.

— My nephew Cashel – who has basically grown up in the time I have had this site – when I first started my site, I was going out to Brooklyn every weekend to baby-sit the guy!! And now he’s a high school graduate. He’s coming East for college. I can’t believe it. I’ve seen him once a year ever since they moved to California. And we have a very good relationship, and we have very good talks, and we text each other from time to time, but there’s nothing like a little Face Time. I think he’s excited too.

— I am currently reading a wonderful book by Timothy Egan called The Immortal Irishman: The Irish Revolutionary Who Became an American Hero, sent to me by my cousin Kerry (sister to cousin Mike. My life is – and always has been – about the juggernaut of O’Malley cousins.) The book is about Thomas Francis Meagher, an Irish (and American) hero whom I know nothing about. A rich kid in 1840s Ireland, with a father in Parliament, he was radicalized (as so many were) by Black ’47. He tried to organize Ireland into a proper rebellion, but he wasn’t a soldier. His talent was in oratory and writing. (He was a Hamilton-esque figure: a prodigy). He had a love affair with the woman known as “Speranza,” an Irish radical – or, a woman who completely re-invented herself as an Irish radical (one of my favorite things about Ireland’s various rebellions is that women were always included. In the prose, and on the front-lines. Egalitarian. In the announcement of the new free Irish Republic post-the Easter rising, it starts with the address: “IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN.” Nice to be included explicitly in any political storm.) Speranza, of course, would go on to give birth to a man you might heard of, Oscar Wilde. But before Oscar came along, his mother was also famous around Ireland and the British Isles, a radical fire-breathing patriot. Meagher was arrested, sentenced to death, and this fact got worldwide attention from the massive Irish diaspora who had fled Ireland during Black ’47. The British balked, and reduced the sentence to a lifetime of imprisonment down on Tasmania (then known as Van Diemen’s Land.) So off he goes around the globe to live in the prison colony with all the other Irish patriots. And THEN Meagher escaped – and you can’t even believe he got away with it, it was extremely complicated – and arrived in New York to much fanfare. He arrived in America just in time for the breakout of the Civil War, and he threw himself into the fight, organizing Irish brigades with fervor. The whole thing is fascinating. He died pretty young, and I’m not reading ahead, so don’t tell me what happens. I wish my father were still alive so I could talk to him about this because I’m sure he knew everything about all of this and could walk to his bookshelf, taking down a book without hesitation, because he knew where it was in all his 100s of books, he knew where to find the quote he wanted to share with me.

Posted in Books, Movies, Personal, Television | Tagged , , , , , , | 20 Comments

Review: Phantom Boy (2016)

Posted on July 15, 2016 by sheila

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Phantom Boy, the latest animated film from Oscar-nominated team Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol is really enjoyable.

My review of Phantom Boy is now up at Rogerebert.com.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

Survivor’s Remorse Season 3 Promo

Posted on July 15, 2016 by sheila

If you didn’t know by now, the O’Malleys are a Showbiz Dynasty. I mean, it can’t be denied so you may as well accept it. Survivor’s Remorse, my cousin Mike’s show on the Starz network, is about to premiere Season 3 on July 24th. Trailer above. Cousin Mike created the show, wrote the show, and show-runs the show. (And somehow had time to start the ball rolling on, and then executive-produce the short film I wrote. This is who Cousin Mike is.)

Jessie T. Usher, RonReaco Lee, Erica Ash, Teyonah Parris, Tichina Arnold and Mike Epps star as the Calloway family, whose fortunes transform overnight when Cam Calloway gets a lucrative contract with a (fictional) NBA team based out of Atlanta. It’s not Beverly Hillbillies. It’s a smart series about money and success, and how those things transform your relationships – good and bad. Based on an idea from LeBron James (who knows of what he speaks, and calls the situation “survivor’s remorse,” as in: You start to make a little cash in your life, you feel obligated to save everyone from your old neighborhood, take everyone along with you, and yet you can’t: you have survived, and you have remorse about it), Survivor’s Remorse is a true ensemble drama, very intelligent about family (first of all), as well as economic realities, not to mention sudden-wealth’s mixed blessing. I highly recommend it. (It’s also hilarious.)

My brother Brendan O’Malley is a writer and story editor on the writing staff (all of them so talented, I met them all when we rehearsed my short film in Mike’s offices on Sunset Boulevard), my cousin Kerry O’Malley (who also appears in the very promising Amazon pilot The Last Tycoon, and works constantly in television and Broadway and Vegas in between) has a recurring role as an obnoxious and clueless sports-journalist, and my aunt Regina O’Malley – veteran of years of theatre, including Broadway – will appear in Season 3 as a therapist for one of the Calloways. (It’s a dynasty, I told you!)

Season 3 premieres on July 24th at 10pm ET/PT, with two back-to-back thirty minute episodes. There’s been a time-slot change: The show will now be playing on Sunday nights for the rest of its 10-episode season.

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Posted in Television | Tagged | 5 Comments

Behind the Scenes

Posted on July 13, 2016 by sheila

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Thank goodness my writing process makes sense to me, at least.

Posted in Personal | 21 Comments

Review: Captain Fantastic (2016)

Posted on July 8, 2016 by sheila

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Very sanctimonious and I did not care for it and that might piss people off since the movie will probably be referred to as “life-affirming” and “heart-warming” and God help anyone who harshes anyone else’s soft-hearted mellow (I’m close to the point now where those two phrases instantly sound sketchy to me, or at least a clue that I probably won’t like said movie). I got FURIOUS emails and Tweets for trashing another “heart-warming” piece of garbage, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. Listen, I’m just telling you all what I think. If you read my language, I am NOT telling YOU what to think. That’s not what criticism is about. For you it’s a bouquet of roses, for me it’s a pile of garbage. C’est la vie. Write a counter-point piece putting your argument into words, leave a comment here telling me what YOU got, make your case. I guess that just takes too much work, huh.

Additionally, and this has been on my mind: “Life-affirming” seems to be shorthand for “feel-good,” “makes you happy,” “provides hope.” Fine, good. I guess. I don’t need art to “provide hope”, or I don’t need it to ONLY do that, but if that’s what you like, good for you, plenty of options. But that’s not the DEFINITION of good art. To me – ANY art “affirms life” because as long as human beings make art – even sad art – there is hope for us all. Shoah is life-affirming merely because it exists. You’re telling me Goya’s “Third of May 1808” is somehow “bad art” because it shows death, rather than “affirms life”? When did people get so WEAK and SOFT? The painting affirms life merely because Goya painted it. End-stop. That horrible moment will live forever, the painting bears witness. WAY WAY more important than being “life-affirming”. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (which I just saw, so it’s fresh in my mind) ends on a totally fatalistic note (at least Williams’ stage version does) and you really don’t have hope for anyone on that stage, except for maybe Maggie, who will not get what she wants but she will at least continue to LIVE. But Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is one of the great American plays. It doesn’t provide jack-squat in terms of being “life-affirming”, or it does but in a far more complex way than what that term connotes. L’Eclisse is life-affirming because it exists and it is a masterpiece and that movie is bleak as shit.

I am tagging this Supernatural because Samantha Isler is in it as one of the hippie daughters, she who made such a huge impression (on me, anyway) as one of the young Amaras … (the 14-year-old one who basically had a seduction scene with a 37-year-old man and she KILLED IT. For better or worse, she KILLED IT).

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She’s even younger-looking than she was in Supernatural, highlighting just how good she was in the scene in Supernatural. She’s wonderful here too (all the kids are. Viggo is great. Frank Langella is great. But the movie is so misguided in what it thinks it’s about and the story it thinks it’s telling.)

All of that being said – and don’t let my rants distract you – here’s my review!

My review of Captain Fantastic is up at Rogerebert.com.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , | 36 Comments

Jafar Panahi Remembers Abbas Kiarostami

Posted on July 7, 2016 by sheila

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Jafar Panahi, the talented and persecuted Iranian filmmaker, is – as everyone knows – banned from making films (he’s made 3 since the sentence came down), banned from traveling, and forbidden from speaking to foreigners or giving interviews (he continues to give interviews). The man is a hero. Panahi needs no introduction and if you’ve been reading me for 5 minutes you know my feelings about his work and his life. Because of his situation, any time any word from him makes it out (there are a few journalists who know how to get to him, or whom he is in contact with, and then the word spreads to the rest of us), I am thrilled. Light from the caves. Keep on, Panahi, keep on!

Panahi got his start as an assistant to the late great Iranian auteur (truly deserving of that label), Abbas Kiarostami, who just died at the age of 76. Kiarostami wrote some scripts for Panahi, and was instrumental in giving Panahi his start. In recent years, as Panahi’s situation worsened, attracting international attention, Kiarostami – who has escaped persecution (his films were not as political as Panahi’s) – would speak out in support of Panahi as well as all of the Iranian artists either in prison or silenced. When this happens, and it happens from the main stage at Cannes or the Berlinale: this is a political act. People in Iran are watching. People in Iran who hate what is happening see this, hear this, and know that there are millions of people “out here” who think what is happening is appalling. And no matter how much the censors and the mullahs and the idiots in charge there want to stop the back-and-forth flow of information: it is too late. We hear from them, they hear from us. It’s the Internet age, bitches: you cannot control it. Just let it go.

And so, Jafar Panahi has reached out – through a translator who has since passed it on to the outside world – with a statement of tribute for his old mentor, Abbas Kiarostami. It’s a beautiful reminiscence about how their friendship started and what Kiarostami taught him.

My favorite bit is this.

Later that afternoon, he asked me to ride with him to another location. Along the way, he stopped and gave me a handkerchief to use as a blindfold, which I did. He continued to drive for a while and stopped again. He helped me get off the car, held my hand, and, after walking me for a couple of minutes, asked me to remove the blindfold. I opened my eyes and saw what turned out to be the final shot of “Through the Olive Trees,” that majestic landscape! As I was stunned by the view, Mr. Kiarostmi told me, “That’s my vision. That’s how I see this place.”

The experience taught me a valuable lesson. I realized the importance of having a vision and how each filmmaker needs to develop his or her vision. The spot we were standing on was Mr. Kiarostami’s vision. He didn’t tell me that was the best vantage point. He just said that was his point of view, and I realized I had to have mine.

Posted in Directors, RIP | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

R.I.P. Abbas Kiarostami

Posted on July 5, 2016 by sheila

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Iconic Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami has died at the age of 76, causing shock waves to erupt through the film world, his fans, and the critics who loved him. If you’ve seen just one of his films, you will know their unique-ness, their radical insistence on distance (very Brechtian), the characters often driving around in vehicles, their faces seen through the windows of a car, with reflections of trees and buildings flowing over them like water.

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Certified Copy – I reviewed the film here.

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Like Someone in Love

His films defy description. They have to do with life, and how to see, how to think, how to perceive. The questions are more important than the answers. Seen as a whole, it is an absolutely extraordinary body of work, one of the most impressive in the last 50 years.

Kiarostami’s films that made it here (and most of them did after <Taste of Cherry) were not just films, or limited-release foreign films, or indie arthouse hits or glittering Cannes-festival winners. His films may have been SOME of those things some of the time. But what a Kiarostami film was ALL the time was an EVENT. Like Jean-Luc Godard, like Terrence Malick, like Wong Kar Wai … there are only a few directors who inspire such reverence, such passionate interest over DECADES.

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Taste of Cherry

Kiarostami kept getting more and more inventive, he never stopped coming out with challenging thought-provoking films, he never rested on his laurels, his talent did not calcify as he grew older (as often happens with directors). Two masterful – and radically different – films as Certified Copy and Like Someone in Love coming out one after the other? It’s been thrilling.

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Shirin

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Shirin

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Shirin

I have written a lot about Kiarostami over the years (full archive here), although there are many I still have not seen (many are hard to find, in general). He lived and worked in Iran (making it through the Revolution and continuing to make films afterwards), and it wasn’t until the end that he made two films outside of Iran (Certified Copy and Like Someone In Love). At the very same time that his former assistant Jafar Panahi was being hounded, arrested, and persecuted, he was flourishing in a way that other Iranian artists could only dream of. He had a cosmopolitan intellectual mindset. He was an example to other struggling Iranian artists on what could be possible. His films were not as political as Panahi’s, but they did not lack for controversy. (Taste of Cherry, about a middle-class man driving around a construction site looking for someone – anyone – willing to bury his body after he committed suicide – won the Palme d’Or at Cannes – the first film from Iran to get that honor – but in Iran, the mullahs and censorship office went nuts because of the suicide factor.) His roots in the great Iranian cinema tradition were strong, and he wrote scripts for other directors (including Panahi), collaborating with others in the “everyone does everything” atmosphere of Iranian cinema. But Kiarostami’s reputation was not local. He was an international man. He worked with Juliette Binoche twice (in Shirin and Certified Copy), he was a regular at Cannes and the Berlinale, one of the glittering lights of the film world for decades, a true icon.

I wanted to point you to Godfrey Cheshire’s piece about his friendship with Kiarostami (Cheshire is encyclopedic in his knowledge of Iranian film, and has traveled there repeatedly for film festivals. You want to learn more about Iranian film? Read Godfrey Cheshire’s stuff.)

The writers at Rogerebert.com, myself included, have each written a tribute, collected here.

It’s telling, and indicative of the power of Kiarostami’s imagery, that I shared the below screen-grab on Twitter and Facebook when I heard the news, putting it up with no text attached. Just the image. And people started sharing it, liking it, leaving comments “I’m so sad.”

Because the image is all.

And once you’ve seen it, it will never ever leave you.

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Close Up

Very sad news. But what an artist.

Posted in Directors, Movies, RIP | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Happy 4th of July

Posted on July 4, 2016 by sheila

Marvin Gaye Sings Star Spangled Banner – 1983 All Star Game – Los Angeles, CA from Neil Gronowetter on Vimeo.

Posted in Music, On This Day | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

June 2016 Viewing Diary

Posted on July 1, 2016 by sheila

Homeland Season 3, Episode 4 “Game On” (2013; d. David Nutter)
Hey, Nutter, what’s up? Thanks for the Supernatural pilot. Going on 12 seasons now, you set it up real good. I have now watched up until Season 5 of Homeland. Honestly, I was so sick of the Brody family that I was ready for them to GO. It was such a relief when they exited the stage because the soap opera in that house – romances and psych wards and sex in laundry rooms – like, come on, who is this show for, and what is it about. Lots of bipolar drama, too, which, frankly, I am surprised I can sit through.

Homeland Season 3, Episode 5 “Yoga Play” (2013; d. Clark Johnson)
I loved the “yoga play.” You know why? Because anything to do with tradecraft taps into my black Special Ops heart. Also: QUINN. Who is now my favorite character and basically why I am still watching.

Homeland Season 3, Episode 6 “Still Positive” (2013; d. Lesli Linka Glatter)
Pretty horrifying murder in this one. I am amazed that this man was able to enter the country. I know a couple of people who work border patrol and those folks do not mess around. Sometimes the “cliffhanger race against the clock” nature of Homeland gets on my nerves.

Homeland Season 3, Episode 7 “Gerontion” (2013; d. Carl Franklin)
Shaun Toub is perfect in his role: a complex and yet also very simple man. Demons. Lots of fear. Trying to save his ass. It makes any scene he appears in a powder keg. OH QUINN I LOVE YOU SO.

Homeland Season 3, Episode 8 “A Red Wheelbarrow” (2013; d. Seith Mann)
I loved this episode for its title alone. Also this whole thing seemed a little far-fetched and quite a gamble: Let’s lock Carrie up in a psych ward, “out” her as bipolar, in the hopes that her vulnerability will make the enemy come forward to recruit her so she can get Intel. Whaddya know, it worked!

Homeland Season 3, Episode 9 “One Last Thing” (2013; d. Jeffrey Reiner)
God, now Brody is hooked on heroin. This poor man. But I’m ready for him to leave.

Appropriate Adult, Part 1 (2011; d. Julian Jerrold)
I heard this mentioned in conversation somewhere, can’t remember where, and everyone was raving about it. It sounded right up my alley, so I watched. It’s incredible. Emily Watson, a brand new social worker, is hired as an “appropriate adult” to assist in criminal proceedings against a husband-wife serial-killing team. It’s a notorious real-life case, and the killings themselves haunt me: that house, that couple, the back yard … it’s horrifying. Dominic West, nearly unrecognizable with his short curly hair, is disgusting and yet emotional and charming, just like the real-life guy apparently was. And Emily Watson gets sucked into the web.

Appropriate Adult, Part 2 (2011; d. Julian Jerrold)
It was a mini-series so it was wrapped up in two episodes. I started getting very uncomfortable when she started visiting him in prison, and they started corresponding. Lines blurred. Plus, the bipolar husband. Bipolar is a theme in television/movies right now. Well, good for them. It’s my LIFE.

Homeland Season 3, Episode 10 “Good Night” (2013; d. Keith Gordon)
I’m alllllllll about Quinn.

Homeland Season 3, Episode 11 “Big Man in Tehran” (2013; d. Daniel Monacan)
Craziness in Tehran. Again, seems like a far-fetched plan. To embed Brody to … why not Special Forces? That’s their gig. But Brody does the job. Messily with an ashtray. In the dude’s office. How to extract him? Well, of COURSE he won’t be extracted. Quinn would have snuck out like a cat burglar because he is, in general, invisible, like all snipers are.

July and Half of August (2015; d. Brandeaux Tourville)
My own movie, screened in Brooklyn!

They Drive By Night (1940; d. Raoul Walsh)
George Raft and Humphrey Bogart (pre-Casablanca Bogart, when Raft was the much bigger star) play truck-driving brothers, on the circuit, doing dangerous night-time routes with truck-loads of fruit, in desperate times that makes them push themselves to the limit. Driving with no sleep, etc. Gritty and realistic. And then enter Ida Lupino. The following year she would co-star (again with Bogart) in High Sierra and she became a star. And it was her performance in They Drive By Night that got everyone’s attention. And it still is an attention-getter, particularly the final scene when she takes the stand in the courtroom. Listen, you’ve probably heard about that scene. It’s very famous. And if you haven’t heard about it, now perhaps you will, because it’s talked about all the time. It is a great GREAT piece of acting, completely wiping out all of the stuff that came before. She is on another level with what she is doing in that scene. It’s still terrifying.

Homeland Season 3, Episode 12 “The Star” (2013; d. Lesli Linka Glatter)
Pretty awful execution scene. But why she loves Brody is still a mystery to me.

The Conjuring 2 (2016; d. James Wan)
Jen and I saw the first one together (she’s my go-to friend for terrifying movies. We have a blast) so I took her to the press screening. I loved the first one, mainly because of the depth of the performances of Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga. In general, not a fan of the latter, but this feels like a role she has really embraced, down to the rings, the body language, the hair, everything. Great character. And Elvis Presley (or at least his music) is featured in not one, not two, but THREE scenes!!

Homeland Season 4, Episode 1 “The Drone Queen” (2014; d. Lesli Linka Glatter)
The entire season should be titled “Clusterfuck.” With a major MAJOR “Inappropriate Sexual Relationship Is a Massive UNDERSTATEMENT” arc. I couldn’t wait until that one was over because I CRINGED.

Homeland Season 4, Episode 2 “Trylon and Perisphere” (2014; d. Keith Gordon)
Fascinating episode split up in two parallel stories: Carrie being unable to deal with her daughter. Her sister is a fucking SAINT. And then Quinn, holed up in a motel, bonding with his landlady, getting drunk, and having sex. He’s looking for a way out. The landlady is very overweight, and I loved that the show didn’t make a big deal out of it and – more crucial – did not make it look like Quinn was “slumming.” She was a person. With an adorable haircut, nobody’s fool, and kind of blown away that this was happening to her. It’s like she fears if she blinks he’ll vanish. And of course he will. But not for one second did I get the feeling that Quinn needed drunk-goggles to fuck her – even though theirs is a drinking relationship. What he really saw in her was a sympathetic listener, a way station, an emissary from the normal world, a fun drinking partner, and someone to fantasize about who had nothing to do with Pakistan/Intelligence/Death.

Homeland, Season 4, Episode 3 “Shalwar and Kameez” (2014; d. Lesli Linka Glatter)
Now begins the Sexually Inappropriate Arc and please tell me when it’s over.

Puerto Ricans in Paris (2016; d. Ian Edelman)
Someone Tweeted hatefully and contemptuously at me for liking this movie. Whatever. Any movie that STARS Luis Guzman is okay by me.

Homeland, Season 4, Episode 4 “Iron in the Fire” (2014; d. Michael Offer)
I am so uncomfortable with what is happening that I can barely watch anymore. But one of the things I love about Season 4 is the soapy sub-plot of the Ambassador (the fantastic Laila Robins) and her pathetic husband (who was “Duck Phillips” on Mad Men: guy seems to be making a career of playing weak pathetic guys. But I love the Arc. He’s so AWFUL and SELFISH. I love the detail, too, about how he plagiarized a book and ruined his career. Following his successful wife around. The whole thing is very entertaining.

Homeland, Season 4, Episode 5 “About a Boy” (2014; d. Charlotte Sieling)
CARRIE. STOP IT.

The Bachelorette, Season 12, Episode 2
Okay, so I have been out of touch with this show for years. But reading the excellent and HILARIOUS Vulture re-caps (someone Tweeted one of them and I read one) made me think, “Let me check this out again.” Now I am hooked. “The Chad” dominated the opening episodes and it was so fascinating. Why it was fascinating was how the GUYS reacted, not her. JoJo, to get you up to speed. It was how the guys sort of organized themselves in loathing to this one guy … and watching it go down was like watching an anthropological documentary. Many many funny moments. Of course I realize the editing is manipulative. But there’s enough real behavior that it’s all been fascinating. My favorites so far? The boxing club owner whom she inexplicably sent home. Chase. James. I like Jordan but I think he seems a little immature. My sister and I text throughout the entire day after any given episode, sharing our thoughts and reactions. It’s a blast.

The Bachelorette, Season 12, Episode 3
Oh my God, Chad. He literally appears to be having a psychotic break.

The Bachelorette, Season 12, Episode 4
I’m not sure I get the appeal of Luke. Yes, he was a war veteran, and that has the potential of being attractive. Yes, they canoodled in a hot tub but you can do that with anyone. When he opens his mouth, platitudes come out, interspersed with “like”, so he is basically a war veteran Valley Girl. Cool hair, though. I still like Chase the best. I like Wells, too, but he doesn’t stand a chance. He’s too real, too regular. And not sure the appeal of Alex at all. He feels like he’s about 15 years old to me and I’m not saying that because he’s short.

All Is Lost (2013; d. J. C. Chandor)
I was sitting having breakfast with Chrisanne out in Long Beach. Alex was gone for the day. Chrisanne and I started talking about survival tactics and techniques, and how we think we would fare faced with life or death situations. The Revenant came up. Other similar stories. I mentioned All Is Lost. She had never seen it. She got so excited she said, “Let’s get the check and go home immediately to watch it.” Which is what we did. At one point, she got so tense that she moved from the couch up to the ottoman closer to the television and I didn’t even notice her doing it. It was like she teleported. Then, as his boat was sinking slowly, and he kept going back on it to retrieve more possessions – she had finally had it and screamed: “NO MORE FIXING. NO MORE FIXING.” Great afternoon.

The Path, Season 1, Episode 1, “What the Fire Throws” (2016; d. Mike Cahill)
Chrisanne is obsessed with The Path and I had never seen it so she sent me home with the screeners SAG/AFTRA sends out in Emmy season. It’s about cults, so naturally I’m into it. Very creepy, and I love all of these actors: Michelle Monaghan, Hugh Dancy, Aaron Paul. It’s a cult reminiscent of a few I could mention, with its own quirks. I watched the first 6 episodes. It’s a bit circular, and the movement is repetitive – although interesting – so I’m not sure if I’ll keep watching. I like its examination of black-and-white thinking and just how threatening doubt can be. Like: no doubt allowed. (Side note: I love that this was created by a woman. It was her story, her idea. Every little bit counts.)

The Path, Season 1, Episode 2, “The Era of the Ladder” (2016; d. Mike Cahill)
Okay, these people are already driving me crazy. Wonderful cast though. I love the kids. I love the teenage boy. I love the relationships and how they are unfolding to us: it’s mysterious and they all speak cult-language but it’s becoming clear. Hugh Dancy is great. So manipulative. So hollow. You get the sense he doesn’t even believe. He just wants the power.

The American Friend (1977; d. Wim Wenders)
Yet another fascinating attempt at bringing Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley to the screen. This is the best movie of the bunch, although Dennis Hopper – as wonderful as he always is – doesn’t really resonate with the off-putting otherness of Ripley (in the way that Alain Delon – the best Ripley yet – does.) But the whole art forgery thing in the Ripley books (and the made-up Derwatt paintings and the sheer scope of the pretense) is fascinating so you get all of these great cameos, including director giants such as eyepatched Nicholas Ray and Samuel Fuller. And Bruno Ganz is extraordinary. It’s really his movie. How an “ordinary” man finds himself doing the most extraordinary things, things he never would have thought possible.

The Path, Season 1, Episode 3, “A Homecoming” (2016; d. Michael Weaver)
It took me a second to realize that that was Kathleen Turner, although her smoky-sexy voice will always be the giveaway. An extraordinary performance, out of left field, truly disturbing, a drunk on her way to dementia. I saw her in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? on Broadway and it was one of the greatest pieces of live-acting I’ve ever seen.

The Killing (1956; d. Stanley Kubrick)
An extraordinary film, both acting-wise and visually. Another “heist” movie – I’ve been watching a lot of those lately. Sterling Hayden (whom I love, and the Criterion release has a GREAT interview with him where he says “I started at the top and then moved on down …”) is terrific (one of the best voices ever, makes my toes curl) – everyone is. Each guy is essential to the heist coming off, and it has to go like clockwork. Of course … things go wrong. And then it starts to unravel. Very REAL-looking cast, tough-guys and regular-looking people, plus Elijah Cook Jr.

Wiener-Dog (2016; d. Todd Solondz)
I can’t get this one out of my head. Someone said to me on Twitter that he hated it because it didn’t provide catharsis or emotional release. Well, it DID provide an emotional release for me … although it’s a hopeless and angry film. The “release” had to do with futility and the impossibility of finding long-lasting joy. But this person seemed to feel that a film was not successful if it didn’t provide a catharsis. (He’s young.) I disagree STRONGLY. To the Greeks, “catharsis” did not mean “finding SOME hope,” “fellow felling,” or whatever. “Catharsis” involved PITY and TERROR. There by the grace of God … Or: My God, how HORRIBLE. Whatever. Wiener-Dog is not unsuccessful because it refuses to provide a catharsis or release. Not every film is meant to be hopeful and cathartic. It may be your PREFERENCE that they are – but that’s a different question. I reviewed for Rogerebert.com.

The Path, Season 1, Episode 4, “The Future” (2016; d. Michael Weaver)
So far so good. Lots of plot-lines and intrigue. Everything holding together. The rules of this cult starting to become clear. The delusion of it. The glimpses of doubt, and groupthink, and what punishment looks like, the desire human beings have to “follow.” I like its patience, even though there doesn’t seem to be much progress. The acting is really really good.

The Path, Season 1, Episode 5, “The Hole” (2016; d. Patrick R. Norris)
I like the tentative fraught-with-nerves budding romance between the teenage son and his classmate. It seems like sending kids to school would be a pretty risky thing. I also like how Michelle Monaghan – True Believer as she is – seems to struggle with memories, wondering about the outside world, her lost sister, etc. But boy, she is a ferocious believer.

The Path, Season 1, Episode 6, “Breaking and Entering” (2016; d. Patrick R. Norris)
Teenage son brings home his evicted girlfriend and mother and siblings. He asks his family to tone down the proselytizing. But of course they don’t. From the second they enter that house, a love-bombing recruitment process begins. I LOVE how teenage son races out to the truck after girlfriend leaves the “church” and then they basically leap into one another’s arms, tearing at one another’s clothes. This should get interesting.

Homeland, Season 4, Episode 6 “From A to B and Back Again” (2014; d. Lesli Linka Glatter)
It’s getting worse in the safehouse. I can barely watch. It’s horrible. Quinn reads Carrie the riot act. I love it. Quinn could probably slaughter a bunch of innocent animals at this point and I’d forgive him.

Homeland, Season 4, Episode 7 “Redux” (2014; d. Carl Franklin)
Tracy Letts is kicking ass recently. Well he always has. As a playwright (we were in Chicago at the same time and I remember the first production of Killer Joe – starring Michael Shannon – and it was like a bomb going off. I ended up being in the first production done outside of Chicago, which is where I met Michael. No, it’s not all about me. But it kind of is.) Tracy Letts was great in Wiener-Dog (see above) and he’s great here too.

Homeland, Season 4, Episode 8 “Halfway to a Donut” (2014; d. Alex Graves)
Oh, Duck Phillips, you are pathetic as a man and even more pathetic as a spy. Really enjoy this arc. Saul being abducted is okay, although Mandy Patinkin’s acting is often very self-serving. He’s excellent, don’t get me wrong, but he’s a soloist, not a team player.

Le Cercle Rouge (1970; d. Jean-Pierre Melville)
I love this movie so much, I own it on Criterion, and it features Alain Delon and Yves Montand, seedy and wordless and COMPETENT in mostly silent roles. Another heist movie, clearly inspired by Rafifi: the heist here is equally elaborate and also takes place mostly in silence. Brilliant. I always have to close my eyes in the Yves Montand “delirium tremens” scene which ambushed me the first time I saw it and I have goosebumps of horror just remembering it. Not only are the “beasts” terrible … that WALLPAPER.

Love & Friendship (2016; d. Whit Stillman)
One of my favorite movies of the year so far. One of the most – if not THE most – Austen-ish of any Austen film adaptation. Fantastic. I love Whit Stillman so much.

Shoah: Part One (1985; Claude Lanzmann)
We had to watch some of this in a college history class on the Holocaust. I had never seen it before. It’s fascinating and extremely depressing, of course, but not exactly in the way I expected. Lanzmann is obsessed with the HOW of it all. Who drove the trains? Who lived across the railroad tracks? Who worked in the camps? What were your duties? Tell me exactly how it went? It’s not that there isn’t judgment in his questions. Obviously there is because this entire thing is a moral issue. But he doesn’t approach his subjects with open outrage. He wants them to talk to him. To tell him everything. How often did the trains run? Did you know what was happening in that church? Who owned this house before you did? Oh, it was a Jewish family? Did you ever ask yourself what happened to them? All of this done with the help of the most dogged translator in the world. I felt the need to re-visit it in such dangerous terrible times. To remember.

5 Easy Pieces (1970; d. Bob Rafelson)
The movie that ushered in the 70s. It could never ever be made now. It’s a brilliant and bleak treatise on loneliness, and total dissociation from meaning. And the final shot is a masterpiece. Amazing performances from Nicholson, Karen Black, Sally Struthers, and the two other “easy pieces.” That’s all they are. Pieces. They don’t add up to much. And so he’s off again.

OJ Made in America, Part 1 (2016; d. Ezra Edelman)
You might think we’d all be OJ-d out. There was the initial event which PLEASE STOP IT NEWS MEDIA that exhausted the nation. Then there was the mini-series this year. And now this 5-part documentary on ESPN. I know Edelman was a little bummed out that the mini-series beat him to the punch but the timing actually couldn’t have been more perfect. This documentary is extremely well done and examines all of the issues – racial, class, gender – that that case brought up. It’s also still infuriating. Because the man got away with murder. At least he’s in jail now. Again.

Nuts! (2016; d. Penny Lane)
Wonderful! Everything you wanted to know about the 1920s/30s quackery of goat-gland specialist “Doctor” John Brinkley. Loved it. Reviewed for Ebert.

OJ Made in America, Part 2 (2016; d. Ezra Edelman)
This whole thing stresses me out. I get too pissed off. But still: it enthralls. Flashbacks to the whole sordid horrible thing. Fuhrman. FUHRMAN. Oh, prosecution, you all were morons. There was literally a trail of blood leading from the bodies TO O.J.’S HOUSE. How do you fuck that up? You put Fuhrman on the stand.

OJ Made in America, Part 3 (2016; d. Ezra Edelman)
I wish Chris Darden had consented to be interviewed but I understand why he didn’t want to dredge it up again. But everyone else is there: OJ’s friends, policemen, courtroom people, bystanders, two jurors, Jeffrey Toobin, everyone.

OJ Made in America, Part 4 (2016; d. Ezra Edelman)
The defense team was shameless. But the prosecution was incompetent.

Millennium, Season 2, Episode 22 “The Fourth Horseman” (1998; d. Dwight Little)
Keith and I picked up where we left off. I love the Biblical stuff and I love how philosophical Season 2 is. It’s like a longer version of CS Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters.

Millennium, Season 2, Episode 23 “The Time Is Now” (1998; d. Dwight Little)
Very Supernatural Season 3/4-ish: Pestilence spreading. And it gets bad. And the final shot of Season 2 is quietly terrifying. Loved it.

Millennium, Season 3, Episode 1 “The Innocents” (1998; d. Thomas J. Wright)
Chris Carter back in charge as show-runner and Keith had warned me that some of the themes introduced in Season 2 would take a back seat. I’m fine with anything this show decides to do. I’m loving it. I love his new partner, Emma Hollis (Klea Scott). I like Lance Henriksen in scenes with women. Some very interesting things come out. He’s an intelligent man, drawn to intelligent challenging women.

Millennium, Season 3, Episode 2 “Exegesis” (1998; d. Ralph Hemecker)
There’s a really interesting twist to this one and a throwback of an Arc that goes back to Season 1 (I think? The seasons are so long). Emma Hollis rising in importance. She’s not afraid to be pushy, to get what she wants. She’s ambitious. She’s super-smart. I like her.

Millennium, Season 3, Episode 3 “TEOTWAWKI” (1998; d. Thomas J. Wright)
A little bit prophetic for my taste. Columbine was a year away. But here is the anxiety of that event beforehand. And now, of course, episodes like this are tragically rote, and Sandy Hook? Forget about it.

Millennium, Season 3, Episode 4 “Closure” (1998; d. Daniel Sackheim)
Interesting backstory provided for Emma, which shows that a lot of people get into that line of work in order to find revenge/justice for their loved ones. Another similarity to Supernatural.

Millennium, Season 3, Episode 5 “”…Thirteen Years Later”” (1998; d. Thomas J. Wright)
It’s so nice to see Supernatural favorite Thomas J. Wright all over the place in Millennium. KISS is involved in this episode, making a cameo appearance. How is that possible? Well, it is. When Frank gets his visions in this one, he sees flash-cards of each KISS member, leering at the camera. Keith and I were roaring.

Millennium, Season 3, Episode 6 “There’s Something Else Going On” (1998; d. Thomas J. Wright)
You bet your ass there is.

Life Animated (2016; d. Roger Ross Williams)
A beautiful and really emotional documentary about an autistic boy who figures out a way to communicate through the Disney animated movies he loves so much. Opens today. My review at Rogerebert.com.

Supernatural, Season 2, episode 21 “All Hell Breaks Loose, Part 1” (2007; d. Robert Singer)
For my latest re-cap, of which the number of comments has almost reached 200. Not bragging. Just saying that the amount of work these take is worth it when you see the conversations they ignite.

The Bachelorette, Season 12, Episode 5
I told you I was hooked. Robbie seems like a nonentity to me. WHY do you love JoJo, Robbie? Not that she’s not lovable – I love her – but … why do YOU love her? Or do you just want to “say it” first? When he said it to her, what was her response? “Thank you.” Ouch.

Supernatural, Season 11, Episode 16, “Safe House” (2016; d. Stefan Pleszczynski)
“It’s Shabbat!” I hadn’t watched this one since it aired. I’m still really impressed with it, and the time and the care they put into that creepy space, and how eerie it was. Plus killer fight-scene between JA and JP, something that always pleases me.

Supernatural, Season 11, Episode 17, “Red Meat” (2016; d. Nina Lopez-Conrado)
I hadn’t watched this one since it aired either. Or I don’t think I did. Either way, this may be one of the best episodes of the season, just in terms of how it deals with the ultimate question: the death of one of these guys. It’s hard to believe it could have any resonance or any finality – but Nina pulled it off. Bold use of slo-mo. Phenomenal acting. My favorite moment currently is the look on Dean’s face when he says “This is gonna hurt like hell …” You know what that’s called? That is called an actor being IN THE MOMENT.

Supernatural, Season 11, Episode 19, “The Chitters” (2016; d. Eduardo Sánchez)
Maybe not quite as good on a re-watch, and boy does it have a long LONG monologue 3/4s of the way through – I had forgotten just how long it was (actor plays the hell out of it though.) I still love Jesse and Cesar, and what they brought to the table, to the series in general. It has always bothered me that there weren’t gay hunters. Not once, guys? Ever? What the hell. There’s every OTHER kind of hunter. Also, maybe if there were LGBT hunters, Dean wouldn’t be so gaga-taken-aback when he meets “one”? Still a funny moment. AND, Dean said the words “settle down.” Please let’s take a moment to acknowledge it and how it shows growth, change, a weird sense of adulthood, asking the important question, acknowledging a RELATIONSHIP that CAN exist. And he ends up protecting that relationship. I imagine that Sam and Dean would have flip-flopped on what to do in that situation throughout the series. Sam would have been a softie, except for … well, when he’s not. ANYWAY. Also: how hilarious that that actress is supposed to be the sheriff of a small town? I’ve lived in small towns. Never seen a sheriff look like THAT. She’s so gorgeous that I am sure if you saw her in real-life you might walk into a mailbox, craning your neck to look at her. Also, the “orgy-ish” comment and the tired “Really??” look she gives Dean. No matter where he goes, SOMEBODY gives him that look.

Homeland, Season 4, Episode 10, “13 Hours in Islamabad” (2014; d. Dan Attias)
Yes, let’s just show our enemies how easy it is to break into our Embassies, shall we? Pretty tense episode, though, with Tracy Letts again killing it, as well as Laila Robins. Carrie is beyond the pale. She’s pretty much a shitty person at this point and should probably be fired. Claire Danes is fearless in playing these unattractive elements.

Homeland, Season 4, Episode 11, “Krieg Nicht Lieb” (2014; d. Clark Johnson)
Holy shitballs, I had no idea NINA HOSS appeared in this series!! One of the best actresses on the planet today? Not an exaggeration. If you haven’t seen Phoenix, then I just don’t know what you are waiting for. (See her in all of her collaborations with Christian Petzold: my favorite collaboration going on right now. Nina Hoss can do ANYTHING.) AND, even better: she suddenly shows up as Quinn’s lover – i.e. long-term friends with benefits – even better – AND she looks at Carrie with this cool almost amused stare, knowing she can handle this frantic American. She’s world class at tradecraft and beats Carrie at her own game.

Homeland, Season 4, Episode 12, “Long Time Coming” (2014; d. Lesli Linka Glatter)
I found this to be an extremely touching episode and very good on all of the details: what a wake can feel like, that there can be joy at such gatherings, a togetherness. Carrie starting to open up to the fact that she’s a mother. Beautiful scene in the park with one of her father’s friends. Quinn suddenly appearing in the distance. (Oh QUINN I HEART YOU.) The two finally kiss and it’s just as sloppy and passionate as I could have hoped for. But alas, not meant to be. Felt that the “Call me with your answer” bit was contrived, and not at all Quinn-like. It was manipulative, a race to the finish. If she says “No” then off I will go to war again. I think it was still effective but I felt them turn up the heat under that thing and you didn’t need it.

Rope (1948; d. Alfred Hitchcock)
It works better as a stage play. The one-take thing is impressive, all of the dialogue and blocking, but somehow … there’s something not quite right about this. Jimmy Stewart is great. Farley Granger wears his guilt on his sleeve. I’m working on something pretty huge right now, so had to re-watch this one.

Shoah: Part Two (1985; Claude Lanzmann)
I will force myself to continue. It’s important. Very very important.

You Can’t Take It With You (1938; d. Frank Capra)
I don’t care how many times I see it, it still makes me laugh, and then it makes me cry when Edward Arnold takes out his harmonica at the end.

Supernatural, Season 2, Episode “All Hell Breaks Loose, Part II” (2007; d. Kim Manners)
Superb. You know, I live in hope and I’m preparing for the next re-cap. Whenever that will launch.

OJ Made in America: Part 5 (2016; d. Ezra Edelman)
Had to force myself it finish it. It’s that good. That upsetting.

Captain Fantastic (2016; d. Matt Ross)
Opens next week. Will be reviewing for Ebert.

Carnage Park (2016; d. Mickey Keating)
Opens today. My review at Rogerebert.com.

The Shallows (2016; d. Jaume Collet-Serra)
It just opened. Jen and I (I told you we like to go see tense movies together) went to see it a couple of days ago. HOLY SHIT Y’ALL. It’s amazing. The main comparison I can think of is not Jaws or Castaway but Aliens. SEE IT.

The Last Tycoon Season 1, Episode 1, The Pilot (2016; d. Billy Ray)
The pilot just launched on Amazon. Based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s unfinished novel, of course. With Matt Bomer (Magic Mike XXL!!) as Monroe Stahr. Incredible production and costume design. Amazing cast. I know two people who appear in it – well, one is my cousin so of course I know her – we grew up together – and – coincidentally – BOTH of them played the lead female role in my script, one in the big New York staged reading, and one in the short film. Worlds collide. Two “Neve”s in this thing? I felt like I was THERE. Kerry O’Malley as one of the hard-working stable of screenwriters at the fictional studio. Annika Marks as the wife of one of the screenwriters. It’s excellent. We all hope it will get picked up, so go watch it on Amazon (you don’t even need an account), and then VOTE FOR IT.

The Bachelorette, Season 12, Episode 6
Oh, JoJo, no. You just said you believe passion should last forever. You just said you are looking for a “unicorn.” Now I suddenly am doubting your judgment. (My sister and I have been texting about this episode for 24 hours now.)
1. Luke’s monologue: “I just like feel strongly for you and I like just want more of you and like sitting here in like Argentina with all this like culture is the best thing ever.” Meanwhile her hand is resting in his crotch. Listen, it’s okay to have a hookup. Go for it. Maybe you’re not ready to settle down, JoJo? That’s totally okay. I wasn’t in my 20s either.
2. Derek is so sure he will win that he now seems to be losing touch with reality. SPOILER ALERT: Which means he was then blind-sided when JoJo picked Chase. He could not believe it. And then my heart broke watching him in his car ride away from the show. He was so upset he began to speak of himself in the third person. It was … I couldn’t believe it was happening, I guess is what I’m trying to say? At one point he said, tearing up, staring out the window. “I guess it’s not my turn to be happy.” He will CRINGE when he sees this … but it was actually kind of tragic.
3. I love Chase. For me, Chase is the Dark Horse. When she asked him to open up, he did in a way that was recognizably human, awkward, and … charming, as a result. He’s not a “playa.” He seemed genuinely shocked when she said, “Maybe I like you more than you like me.” He had no idea the signals he was giving out. Fascinating. I told you, it’s like watching creatures in a zoo. And I’m dating now, because I’m sick of having a dead cold heart, and this whole thing is actually extremely enlightening. I used to know all this shit because once upon a time I was a floozy. I never believed in a “unicorn” don’t get me wrong, but I was out and about and used to this kind of engagement. So now I’m basically starting to exercise those muscles again. I have some extremely funny stories. I’m like the stereotypical guy in every scenario. The guy gets mushy, I put the brakes on. The guy wants to talk deeply, I wonder if I will get laid that night, AS he’s talking deeply to me. Clearly I might not be ready for this kind of quest right now, and I never said I wasn’t difficult. But the men in my past – the big ones – Michael and the man who shall be known as M. (or Window-Boy, for old-timers – there’s a worlds-collide thing happening with him right now that is so hilarious it borders on the totally surreal but I’ll share it when it becomes a reality) – anyway – neither of them sweated any of this, or found me difficult, or if they did it was just “Oh, that’s Sheila, and I like her.” And both of THEM were difficult too and it didn’t matter to me because I liked/loved them. Neither Michael nor M. were in any way/shape/form unicorns, just regular people who liked me as I was. You see? The Bachelorette is sneaky in that it is rather deep, or at least it makes me ponder all of these things. Bonus point for Chase: he effortlessly went to pull JoJo’s chair out for her – he did it automatically – and Crybaby Derek looked like he thought he should have thought of that – but Chase didn’t have to think of it. He just did it. Chase and James are my current favorites. But then there’s JoJo’s hand in Luke’s crotch to consider. As well as her adoration of Jordan, who is nice, but seems like a college student to me in terms of his development.
4. Dear James, it is never a good look to gossip about the other men when you have a “one on one” with JoJo. But when he says, “I really am the best man for her here” – I kinda believe him.
5. I fear that James may have a permanent scar on his eyelid from that football-playing challenge.
6. What exactly does Alex bring to the table? He also has glimmers of a real anger problem and he’s not even aware of it.

I have spoken more about The Bachelorette here than I have about Shoah. I’m sorry.

To Each His Own (1946; d. Mitchell Leisen)
I watched this last night (it’s on Youtube in its entirety) to celebrate the 100th birthday (today) of Olivia de Havilland who is still alive and with us. Olivia de Havilland is one of the greatest actresses in cinema history and if all you know of her is Gone With the Wind (for which she was nominated for Best Supporting), then I beg of you to branch out. See The Snake Pit (another Oscar nom, this time for Lead), Hold Back the Dawn, another nom, her tour de force in The Heiress, for which she won an Oscar (it is one of the all-time great performances by an actress ever), and then this one – To Each His Own, another Oscar win. I watch this film and I swear, I can barely breathe. It’s a “woman’s picture”, the money-making juggernaut that used to be an accepted part of Hollywood, as opposed to now, when an all-female Ghostbusters brings out the raging virgins of outrage. (If a female Ghostbusters “ruins your childhood,” then you should get down on bended knee and thank the Lord above that he has spared you any REAL pain in your childhood.) This is one of the popular stories of female martyrdom (which Molly Haskell analyzes so brilliantly in her essential volume, From Reverence to Rape) which was a way for the somewhat-disenfranchised female audience to let off a little steam, weep for what they have given up, weep because someone understands the difficulty of the choices. Career or motherhood? Love or practicality? And etc. But the two final scenes … the two final scenes … If they do not destroy you and reduce you to a puddle, get your heart checked! And finally: Olivia de Havilland’s mousy spinster-before-her-time character sleeps with a pilot who breezes his way through town – she’s clearly never slept with anyone before but she falls for him. Their one night results in a pregnancy. He’s long gone by that time. Then word comes that he’s been shot down over France (WWI). There is a frank discussion with a doctor about a possible illness that needs surgery – but if she does it, she needs to make a choice: her own life or the baby’s: it’s either/or. She says, “Well, the choice is clear” (meaning: I’ll get the surgery.) Nobody blinks an eye. In 1946, that seemed like a reasonable choice. We have gone backward. But then something happens and she ends up having the baby. She breaks the news to her elderly father, who is shocked. She’s never even had a boyfriend. How did this happen? She huddles in the corner, away from him, sobbing, “You’ve always been proud of me … I am sorry to have shamed you” and he approaches her saying, “Josie.” She won’t turn around. He says, “Turn around, Josie.” She does. He puts his hands on her shoulders and says, “We don’t judge each other here. We love each other, we don’t judge each other.” SOBBING. Having a baby out of wedlock is still a big BIG deal … but on an interpersonal level, it’s quite a different story. An INCREDIBLE performance from de Havilland, who goes from age 18 to 40 … with a total personality change, due to her hardships and loneliness, a hardening of the heart … and then: those two final scenes. Breathtaking.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MISS OLIVIA.

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